


"just wing it haha", or, the wingfic everyones been waiting for

by Mungo_of_Maundery



Category: The A-Team (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, Dermatillomania, Gen, Genderfluid Character, Mental Health Issues, Trichotillomania, Wingfic, bfrb, transgender character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:22:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28802751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mungo_of_Maundery/pseuds/Mungo_of_Maundery
Summary: its a wingfic lads, read the label. but its also a vehicle for me to talk abt gender and abt body focused repetitive behaviour disorders :)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ty to ella and mag for ur help naming this masterpiece. this was supposed to be a big one-shot but i crave attention and validation so im posting it in chapters <3
> 
> pls do not keep parrots as pets unless u r an experienced bird owner. border collies do not make good first dogs. never be the person that made someone feel nervous or ashamed of their scars. never pull or clip a blood feather. always assume that people have experienced more than they let on. u cannot always tell someone's gender from looking at them. ty for ur attention <3

B.A. wins for wingspan these days. Murdock is a little jealous – no, not true. He’s _seething_ with envy, all the time, so much so that it scorches him inside like acid. Especially when B.A. never makes use of them for their intended purpose. If he would fly now and then, it maybe wouldn’t rankle so hard. But no. B.A. uses them to intimidate; his mighty wingspan gives him an impressive threat display, which he utilises freely and without consideration for Murdock’s sensitive feelings.

Murdock doesn’t open his wings much now, not since they were first clipped. He doesn’t want the rest of the team to see his humiliation, to know how useless he is to them. He over-preens, he knows. He yanks out the damaged flight feathers in the hopes that it’ll make them grow back quicker, but all it does is make him sore and bleeding. He plucks, too, all over. Sometimes he tells the team he’s moulting if they look too hard and see the mess he’s made of them, but it’s hardly ever true. His feathers are patchy in places, the skin underneath scabbed and raw. He keeps his wings tightly folded as though by keeping them this way he can hide them. He’s not sure if he’s ashamed or protective of them. It’s probably both.

Hannibal was always a good flier. Murdock noticed it back in Vietnam. He has a flair for airborne acrobatics that almost rivals what Murdock’s used to be. In other words, he flies like a maniac, and Murdock appreciates that. When Hannibal flies on missions, B.A. and Murdock watch from the ground and B.A. shakes his head and Murdock is impressed. Seeing Hannibal fly doesn’t hurt; instead he cheers the colonel on with whoops and yells and shrieks of delight, and he can almost kid himself that it’s him up there.

Murdock grabs B.A.’s arm and points, jumping up and down. “Look at him go, B.A.! Just look at him go!”

“I’m lookin’, fool,” says B.A. irritably. “Let go of my arm.”

When Hannibal lands, shaking himself down in that odd, self-conscious way he has, Murdock rushes over to congratulate him.

“That was marvellous, Colonel,” he says, seizing Hannibal’s hand and shaking it. “It was – it was wonderful!”

“Thanks, Murdock,” says Hannibal with a grin.


	2. Chapter 2

Face, on the other hand, has never been a natural at flying, probably because he never got to practise as a kid. He flutters when he’s nervous and when he’s excited, and it’s his most obvious tell when bluffing. Face knows this, so before major scams he sometimes tapes them closed. It looks painful, but what does Murdock know?

“Not so tight,” Face complains as Murdock helps him one day.

“Sorry. Is that better?”

Face flexes, winces, and nods. “It’ll do. Thanks, Murdock.”

The taping is discreet, but even if someone notices, it won’t necessarily blow Face’s cover. Lots of people do it. Sometimes it’s a fashion thing, sometimes convenience, sometimes a kind of macho tough-guy posturing. Murdock has never understood it, but at least Face is safer if he doesn’t flap every time he tells a lie.

Face’s wings are small – almost vestigial, Murdock thinks with a smirk, although it’s probably unfair, as Face can fly well enough when necessity demands – and very pretty. Unlike Hannibal, Face doesn’t mind other people touching them, as long as they don’t mess up his feathers too much. Hannibal takes deep offence, and none of the rest of the team would even think to try to touch the colonel’s wings, knowing the insult it would convey. Face is easier about it. Sometimes, he even lets B.A. preen him. B.A. has always been the best at that, because his hands are so careful and gentle.

Murdock likes to sink his fingers into the fluffy grey-blue down at the back of Face’s wings, and Face never seems put out by it, just stretches warmly and smiles.

B.A. doesn’t seem to like having his wings touched. Maybe it’s a respect thing, like it is with Hannibal. B.A. says it damages the feathers to have people’s fingers rubbing all over them.

“What do you care?” Murdock asks testily, drawing his hand back, hurt by the rejection. “It’s not like you use them anyway.”

They’ve all been clipped before, in the PoW camp and later when they were first arrested. They know the drill. But Murdock thinks that maybe they don’t know how it feels. Not really.

Face complained heartily in the camp, mourning his lost flight feathers. For two days, he wouldn’t get up. Murdock remembers sitting down next to him, pulling him into a hug.

“It’s okay,” he’d said. “Wings your size? They’ll grow back in no time.”

“I know that,” Face had said. “I’ve had ‘em done before, when I was a kid. But it’s not the same now I’m grown.”

They’d all been so young back then. Face and B.A. had seemed especially so. The underside of B.A.’s right wing still didn’t have full adult plumage and Murdock used to scratch on them lightly to tease him for still being such a baby. They’d had to strap B.A.’s wings in the camp so that he couldn’t spread them, because they were big even then and powerful, and one knock from them would send his enemies tumbling like dominoes. Hannibal had warned B.A. not to draw attention to himself, and Murdock had known why.


	3. Chapter 3

“When do you think Hannibal will be back?” Face asks, now, pulling his jacket tighter closed against the spitting wind.

Murdock and B.A. don’t know. Face huffs. He looks like a drowned sparrow. Face’s feathers aren’t very waterproof, not like B.A.’s. Murdock reckons it’s because B.A. takes better care of his. Face’s wings also come with the problem of being too small to wrap around himself, bat-like, the way Hannibal sometimes does.

“C’mere,” says B.A. and pulls Murdock and Face closer to him, to shelter them both.

“Hannibal will be back soon,” Murdock assures Face. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not _worried_ ,” returns Face. “I’m just – I’m just cold.”

The three of them huddle closer together. When he knows they can’t see, Murdock lets his left wing unfurl and angles it so that it protects B.A.’s head from the rain. It means brushing against B.A.’s wing, but B.A. just looks grateful for the shelter. He squeezes Murdock a little tighter in thanks and they all settle, waiting for Hannibal’s return.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murdock and Amy talk about things they can't put a name to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we love an oblique little discussion about gender. Murdock's pronouns switch towards the end, just a heads up in case it's confusing

Amy, like Murdock, keeps her wings tightly folded, flattened against herself, especially when they first meet her. There’s something about Amy’s wings that seems strange somehow. It takes Murdock a couple of days to work out what it is, and when he does, he wishes, for the sake of her privacy, that he hadn’t. He doesn’t think the others have noticed, except maybe Hannibal.

One time, when Amy visits him at the hospital, she brings it up. “I guess you figured it out,” she says with a sigh. She opens her right wing momentarily, as blue as the cloudless sky above them. Not typical for women with her species of wings, at all.

“How’d you know?”

Amy gives him a look. “Let’s put it this way, you’re not as subtle as you think you are.”

Murdock flushes. Was it really that obvious? Has he given her away?

Seeing his discomfort, she adds, “Don’t worry, I know you’re discreet. I’ve lived like this long enough to know when people catch on.”

“I think they’re pretty,” he tells her, and hopes he hasn’t just put his foot in it. “I mean – I don’t think they look – ”

“I like them,” she agrees, cutting him off before he can say the m-word.

Murdock is confused. “So why do you hide ‘em?”

“Why do you?”

That stumps him. “I like mine just fine,” he says, a little defensive. “I’m not – ”

“Me neither. But I didn’t know you guys so well at the start, remember?”

Murdock thinks he understands. “I don’t think people notice as much as you think they do.”

“It’s not a risk I take lightly.”

That makes sense. He doesn’t understand it fully, himself, but he does in a way. “I’ve felt that way, too. Like – like you are.”

Amy blinks. “You have?”

Now that he’s said it, he wants to backtrack. “Sometimes. I guess. Not a big deal. It's not all the time, I mean.”

Something almost imperceptibly shifts in Amy’s manner, then, and she’s gentler, less prickly. “You can be yourself. Sometimes it isn't all the time. Some people are both.”

“It’s not for everyone. I don’t think the others would understand.”

“I’d understand.” She puts her hand over his, over hers. Murdock breathes out, trying to remember how unembarrassed she feels when she clowns around with the rest of the team. She tries not to feel like she’s shown herself too much, and she thinks Amy is thinking the same.


	5. Chapter 5

“So what is it with you and flying, anyway?” Murdock asks. B.A. is mostly invisible under the van, but his feet still poke out.

“What? Shut up about flying and pass me another zip tie.”

Murdock puts a zip tie into the outstretched hand, but continues anyway. “I mean, there you are, all prepped for flight – and bam!” Murdock slaps his hand against B.A.’s shoe. “You just won’t take off. Why is that, do you think?”

B.A. scoots out from underneath the van and stands up, dusting himself down. “Maybe I’m worried I’ll meet people like you in the air.”

“But you meet people like me on the ground, too, so that can’t be it.”

“I can fly,” says B.A.

“Oh yeah? Prove it!”

B.A. spreads his wings so quickly that Murdock has to jump to get out of the way, his own wings flapping in his surprise.

“You wanna see me fly?” says B.A.

Murdock nods earnestly. B.A. flexes his wings once, twice, and then abruptly cuffs Murdock around the head with the edge of his wing. The force sends Murdock staggering, his hat knocked off his head. He retrieves it solemnly and says, straightening, “You know, B.A., you know, sometimes, you are so _mean_ to me that I begin to think you don’t like me.”

“I _don’t_ like you!”

Murdock gasps, feigning shock at this revelation. “B.A.! How can you say that?”

“Like this: I don’t like you! Now get out of my way!”


	6. Chapter 6

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“No way,” says Murdock brightly. “Not me.”

“Don’t they get stiff?”

Stiff! Stiff doesn’t even begin to cover the burning that plagues him with his wings folded up like this all the time. “Nope,” he says. 

“They’re probably atrophying,” says Face from the lower bunk in the other cell. “You should do your exercises more with them, like Richter told you to.”

Murdock sticks his tongue out at him.

“Lay off, guys,” says Hannibal. “Murdock, we only need you to be able to get from the mid-level to the upper level, it’s three metres at most, but we won’t be able to help you and it’s a sheer surface.”

Murdock frowns. “Well, altitude ain’t my strong suit. That’s kind of the point of the, uh – the clipping. Two metres I could probably do, but three…” he shakes his head.

Hannibal tilts his head. “I think we can work with two metres, so long as you can grab the rail at the top, it doesn’t matter how much higher you get. Can you get from where you are now to the top bunk?”

Murdock checks the distance and the height and then thinks about wind speed and remembers that they’re inside, there’s no point overthinking this. “Probably,” he hazards.

Hannibal spreads his hands. “Well, no time like the present, Cap.”

Murdock sighs. He wishes he didn’t have to do this in front of Face and B.A. He closes his eyes and spreads his wings. A feather drops to the floor and Murdock feels himself redden in embarrassment. He screws his eyes shut even tighter. They’re in such a state.

“You’re over-preening,” B.A. observes.

“Thanks for the diagnosis, Doctor Psych!” Murdock quips back, stung. No shit he does! It’s not so unusual. In the psych ward, almost all the patients do it. It’s a stereotype, that all crazy people pluck their feathers, but Murdock has his theories about that. Anyone locked in a room by themselves all day with nothing to do and nobody to talk to would do it, even B.A. “Sound Mind” Baracus. It’s a hallmark of the disturbed and the anxious and the incarcerated, but it’s boredom, too. And besides, whatever the reason, it’s not nice of B.A. to bring it up.

Hannibal doesn’t mention the damaged patches where Murdock has pulled too much, or the way some of the feathers are bent, or the runnel of dried blood that tracks down one of them from where he yanked out a blood feather, on purpose, and still doesn’t know why, except that the pain woke him up.

“You can take a running jump at it,” Hannibal says smoothly, brushing aside Murdock’s humiliation, almost as if he has nothing to be ashamed of. “In fact, if you think you might have trouble with the altitude, I’d recommend it.”

“Shame we couldn’t have waited for the clip to grow out, huh?” says Murdock, forcing a laugh. Still, Hannibal’s attitude makes him feel like less of a freakshow, and he feels calmer.

Hannibal nods. “I’m sorry we can’t wait.”

So, Murdock tries to forget that he’s being watched and critiqued and starts. The cells are long, just long enough to get a few paces in before jumping, and he goes for it. Gaining altitude is like swimming underwater wrapped in a felt blanket – an uphill struggle – but his feet are off the ground and he almost makes it to the top bunk without needing to use his hands, but his momentum isn’t quite enough, and he barks his shins against the bar. It doesn’t make enough difference to matter, though, because he grabs the rail and hauls himself over and onto the mattress. B.A. is clapping, a huge grin on his face. Murdock hisses in pain as he checks his shins, and his wing-muscles, long out of use, tremble from the exertion, but he made it. Maybe he’ll fly again properly, some day.

*

The next day, however, as their plan falls into action, Murdock wonders if maybe Hannibal was having him on. The wall is sheer, that part was right. It’s a black slab of rock with no footholds or dips. But the brown, murky water between Murdock and the top of the wall – which, incidentally, is easily three metres, not two, and the rail is another two feet above that – makes another three metres distance. Murdock’s heart hammers in his throat and he paces, trying to gear himself up. If he’s not over the wall in five minutes, Face won’t have the backup he needs to get out of his own situation. Murdock looks behind him – thankfully, there’s a good stretch of concrete that he can run up from. There’s no time like the present, he hears Hannibal say again. No time like the present.

He almost makes it. He fixes his eyes on the space between the top of the wall and the rail above it and aims for it. But halfway across the strait he stops gaining altitude. He maintains for a second or so longer, until he’s almost in reach, and then he’s falling. His momentum smacks him against the wall like a bird into a windshield and he bounces off and plummets, stunned. The cold water envelops him and shocks him back to alertness and he breaks the surface again, ears ringing. Strong arms hook under his own and around his chest and lift him clear of the water and when he cranes his neck, he sees that it’s B.A. B.A. is flying!

B.A. clears the top of the wall with an ease that makes Murdock embarrassed, but doesn’t alight right away. Instead, they keep flying. B.A. doesn’t go as high as Murdock would if he was able, but it’s still the highest he’s been in a long time. The ground falls away beneath them and he thinks they’re almost ten metres up. He twists again in B.A.’s arms to see his face.

B.A. grips him tighter. “Quit wriggling, or I’ll drop you.”

Murdock lets himself go still, lets B.A. do the work. “I thought you didn’t want to run into people like me in the air,” he manages.

“You ain’t so bad.”

Murdock can feel B.A.’s heartbeat, hears the sudden anxiety in his breath when a light breeze hits them unexpectedly. This isn’t a recovery. Murdock is just being rescued. Being prioritised over B.A.’s anxiety is a baffling, but not unpleasant, experience.

The van comes into view, parked up a way down the road. Hannibal and Face are nowhere to be seen, so they must still be in the roofed part of the compound the team were being held in.

When they land, Murdock’s knees and ankles seem to have turned to jelly, so B.A. lowers him into a sitting position against the front wheel of the van and inspects him for injuries. “I’m okay,” Murdock tells him.

“You hit the wall pretty hard.”

“I was just playing squash with myself.”

“Yeah, I saw.” B.A. checks his head, looks in his eyes – Murdock stares at him and smiles – runs a hand along his wing to ensure that the bent feathers don’t hide a worse injury, but Murdock is just bruised and still dizzy, and soaking wet.

One thing confuses him though, and he doesn’t think it’s an after-effect of his collision with the wall. “Why were you there?” he asks B.A. “You’re supposed to be on the other side of the compound with the van to help Hannibal.”

B.A. shrugs. “I thought you might need some help, so I came back when Hannibal went to get Face.”

“You thought I couldn’t make it!”

“You _didn’t_ make it.”

He reaches out a hand and pulls Murdock to his feet.

At the other side of the compound, when they get there, Face and Hannibal are well into an outmatched fistfight against their captors.

“Cutting it fine, guys,” says Hannibal as Murdock and B.A. dash in to their aid.

*

“Why are you all wet?” Face asks as they head back to the van, leaving as ever a trail of mayhem and smashed up villainy behind them, and touches a hand to Murdock’s jacket.

“I, uh –”

“I pushed him in the water,” says B.A. gruffly. “Man’s always jibber-jabbering. He needed to be taught a lesson.”

Murdock feels his mouth drop open. First flying, now lying. Murdock doesn’t think he’s ever heard anything like this before. “B.A. –” he begins, not wanting to be the cause of B.A.’s break from honesty.

“Shut up!” says B.A.

“Now B.A., that wasn’t very nice,” says Hannibal. “He’s soaked.”

“I don’t care.”

“Why’d you do it, B.A.?” Face asks.

“Yeah,” says Murdock, shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning towards B.A. “Why _did_ you do it, B.A.?”

B.A. scowls at them both and declines to answer.

Murdock ponders all this in the van on the way home. He clambers up close behind B.A. as he drives and pets him affectionately. His rescuer! B.A. does like him. He toys with one of B.A.’s earrings and says, “I’m glad that we’re buddies. That we’re best pals. Secretly, I mean.”

“Get off me,” says B.A., jerking his head out of reach. “Hannibal, this fool won’t stop bothering me.”

Hannibal watches but doesn’t intervene. When B.A., slapping Murdock’s hand away, swerves slightly, Face taps Murdock twice on the arm and Murdock desists, still grinning.

**Author's Note:**

> theres loads of this to come lol im just impatient!! also i have very specific headcanons about what kinds of wings they all have so see if u can guess em. this was supposed to be a conceptual piece but uhh. it kinda turned into an excuse to talk abt gender and BFRBs. oops


End file.
